Senior Backend Engineer, Observability Lead (Remote)

Affirm, Inc.; Palo Alto (CA); Remote; USD 230,000 - 290,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health coverage

Stipends for tech setup

Flexible time off

Employee stock purchase plan

Job summary

AFFIRM, INC. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead Observability. You will own the telemetry architecture, guide cross-functional projects, and mentor a team of engineers while collaborating with infrastructure and product teams.

You’ll shape observability practices, design log sampling, and drive technical strategy on a year-long horizon, contributing to scalable, reliable systems for payments over time.

Qualifications

• 8+ years designing backend systems at scale.
• Experience with Python or Kotlin in production.
• Experience with AWS, MySQL, Flink, and Kubernetes.
• Strong observability practices and telemetry experience.
• Ability to lead and mentor a team across functions.

Responsibilities

• Own architecture of telemetry pipeline for 200+ TB/day.
• Design log sampling to reduce cost while preserving signal.
• Define technical strategy and roadmaps for the team.
• Collaborate with product, design, and analytics.
• Mentor engineers and improve code quality and reviews.
• Ensure monitoring and on-call readiness.

Skills

Backend design

Python or Kotlin

Distributed systems

AWS

OpenTelemetry

Kafka

Kubernetes

Telemetry pipelines

Education

Bachelor’s degree in related field

Tools

Terraform

Kafka

Flink

MySQL

Job description

AFFIRM, INC. is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead Observability. You will own the telemetry architecture, guide cross-functional projects, and mentor a team of engineers while collaborating with infrastructure and product teams.

You’ll shape observability practices, design log sampling, and drive technical strategy on a year-long horizon, contributing to scalable, reliable systems for payments over time.